We received an email inquiry from someone wanting to register to comment but unable to do so. Since others may have the same question, I decided to make the answer a post.
When the blog started, would-be commenters could register on the blog and get a user ID and a password. Upon one of the periodic updates of the blog software, I was horrified to discover that some genius at Movable Type (the software maker) had decided that self-registerers would be designated "authors" rather than "commenters" by default, meaning they could write posts as well as comment on them. As that was unacceptable, I had to shut the feature off. Legacy commenters can still use their IDs, but nobody can register on their own.
To compensate, I opened commenting to people who sign in through other services, including OpenID, Google, and Yahoo. At the "sign in" page, there is a drop-down menu to choose one of these other sign-in methods.
Some of these other sign-in methods have an annoying "feature" (or bug, IMHO) of using a long string of random characters for a user name. For those signing in this way, we request that you adopt a "handle" and "sign" your comments in the text so everyone can see which comments come from the same person.
At some point in the not too distant future, hopefully, I will be able to restore the original registration system, and then I will phase out use of the alternative services. But I am employed mainly as a lawyer here. Being the IT Guy is "additional duty" that I do when I get around to it. So I don't know when that will be. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience.
When the blog started, would-be commenters could register on the blog and get a user ID and a password. Upon one of the periodic updates of the blog software, I was horrified to discover that some genius at Movable Type (the software maker) had decided that self-registerers would be designated "authors" rather than "commenters" by default, meaning they could write posts as well as comment on them. As that was unacceptable, I had to shut the feature off. Legacy commenters can still use their IDs, but nobody can register on their own.
To compensate, I opened commenting to people who sign in through other services, including OpenID, Google, and Yahoo. At the "sign in" page, there is a drop-down menu to choose one of these other sign-in methods.
Some of these other sign-in methods have an annoying "feature" (or bug, IMHO) of using a long string of random characters for a user name. For those signing in this way, we request that you adopt a "handle" and "sign" your comments in the text so everyone can see which comments come from the same person.
At some point in the not too distant future, hopefully, I will be able to restore the original registration system, and then I will phase out use of the alternative services. But I am employed mainly as a lawyer here. Being the IT Guy is "additional duty" that I do when I get around to it. So I don't know when that will be. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience.
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